Of another fact there is no dispute--the intense hatred with which Mrs. Howard and Mrs. Clayton regarded each other. The former was calm, cool, cutting, and contemptuous, but never unlady-like, always self-possessed and severe. The latter was hot, eager, and for ever rendering her position untenable for want of temper, and therefore lack of argument to maintain it. Mrs. Clayton, doubtless, possessed more influence with the Queen than her opponent with the King, but the influence has been vastly overrated. Caroline only allowed it in small matters, and exercised in small ways. Mrs. Clayton was, in some respects, only her authorised representative, or the medium between her and the objects whom she delighted to relieve or to honour. The lady had some influence in bringing about introductions, in directing the Queen’s notice to works of merit, or to petitions for relief; but on subjects of much higher importance Caroline would not submit to influence from the same quarter. On serious questions she had a better judgment of her own than she could be supplied with by the women of the bedchamber. The great power held by Mrs. Clayton was, that with her rested to decide whether the prayer of a petitioner should or should not reach the eye of Caroline. No wonder, then, that she was flattered, and that her good offices were asked for with showers of praise and compliment to herself, by favour-seekers of every conceivable class. Peers of every degree, and their wives, bishops and poor curates, philosophers well-to-do, and authors in shreds and patches; sages and sciolists; inventors, speculators, and a mob of ‘beggars’ which cannot be classed, sought to approach Caroline through Mrs. Clayton’s office, and humbly waited Mrs. Clayton’s leisure, while they profusely flattered her in order to tempt her to be active in their behalf. Caroline not only ruled her husband without his being aware of it, but could laugh at him heartily, without hurting his feelings by allowing him to be conscious of it. Hereafter mention may be made of the sensitiveness of the court to satire; but before the death of George I., it seems to have been enjoyed--at least by Caroline, Princess of Wales--more than it was subsequently by the same illustrious lady when Queen of England. Dr. Arbuthnot, at the period alluded to, had occasion to write to Swift. The doctor had been publishing, by subscription, his ‘Tables of Ancient Coins,’ and was gaining very few modern specimens by his work. The dean, on the other hand, was then reaping a harvest of profit and popularity by his ‘Gulliver’s Travels’--that book of which the puzzled Bishop of Ferns said, on coming to the last page, that, all things considered, he did not believe a word of it!